Chinese American Literature without Borders

This book bridges comparative literature and American studies by using an intercultural and bilingual approach to Chinese American literature. King-Kok Cheung launches a new transnational exchange by examining both Chinese and Chinese American writers. Part 1 presents alternative forms of masculinity that transcend conventional associations of valor with aggression. It examines gender refashioning in light of the Chinese dyadic ideal of wen-wu (verbal arts and martial arts), while redefining both in the process. Part 2 highlights the writers’ formal innovations by presenting alternative autobiography, theory, metafiction, and translation. In doing so, Cheung puts in relief the literary experiments of the writers, who interweave hybrid poetics with two-pronged geopolitical critiques. The writers examined provide a reflexive lens through which transpacific audiences are beckoned to view the “other” country and to look homeward without blinders.   

“A compelling model for transpacific comparative studies, this book provincializes both Euro-American and Asian-American literary studies through deft crossings of cultural, linguistic, and literary boundaries, demonstrating the powerful and productive functions of cross-pollination.” (Ali Behdad, John Charles Hillis Professor of Literature, University of California, Los Angeles, USA)

“King-Kok Cheung makes a valiant call to break the shackles of literary insularity. This magnanimous work gives Chinese American writers an exuberant presence in the global literary landscape.” (Marilyn Chin, Professor of English, San Diego State University, USA)

“This is transnational study at its best. King-Kok Cheung opens up the field to transcultural voices and perspectives as the best intervention against orientalist, masculinist, and racist constructions of Asian Americans.” (Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Professor of History, Brown University, USA) 

“As an intellectual migrantand bilingual critic, King-Kok Cheung bridges 7,000 miles and 3,000 years. This book refashions our views about Chinese American masculinity, feminism, aesthetics, and the act of writing itself.” (Te-hsing Shan, Distinguished Research Fellow, Academia Sinica, Taiwan)

“Cheung’s jargon-free style and close textual analyses provide a wealth of resources for continuing a transnational dialogue across the Pacific among writers, students, translators, critics, and artists who are interested in the world of literature as it is written today…. It’s the real deal, for those of you interested in Chinese and Asian American literature, comparative literature, life-writing, gender studies, sexuality studies, Sinophone Studies, postcolonial studies, transnational studies, poetry and fiction.” (Russell C. Leong, Editor, Cuny Forum, City University of New York)

King-Kok Cheung is Professor of English and Asian American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. She is author of Articulate Silences and editor of Words Matter; An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature; "Seventeen Syllables"; Asian American Literature: An Annotated Bibliography; and coeditor of The Heath Anthology of American Literature.